


All of These Wicked Ceremonials

by CaptainRivaini



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canon Bisexual Character, Character Death, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Female-Centric, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-02
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-04-07 09:30:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4258263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainRivaini/pseuds/CaptainRivaini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"His hand rubbed soothing circles against the skin of Eleanor’s neck, large and rough circles. The sight made Max clear her throat once she caught sight of the growing ferocity of his touch and Eleanor’s restrained fury that lingered in her eyes and shoulders like a bomb waiting to go off.</p><p>Max would not touch her. </p><p>Max would not set her alight for the whole world to see."</p><p>Eleanor and Max are reunited after the latter's absence, however not under the best circumstances...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i'd like to dedicate this two shot fic to all my readers who have been SO patient with me in concerning binds/we're on a boat. i am not giving up on these projects at all, but i would like to give you all something to tide you over while i continue to work on other stuff. thank you so much, this is for you guys!

Max had never been to a funeral before.

Thus she reasoned that was one of the reasons why she had no idea how to dress or act and ended up looking completely out of place.

She had made sure to wear her black veil that covered her face, the fabric speckled with jewels, like a black sky full of stars, but heavy on her head. It had itched when her mother had put it on her head for her, wrinkled hands making sure it didn’t disturb the tight bun that Max adorned before pressing down her black (mostly netted) dress.

Her heels were black too and now they rubbed her as she got out of the shared vehicle where she and Charles Vane had sat in complete and utter discomfort. It was ironic really considering that the same irritation she felt for her new, scuffing heels was also how she felt about the man that had chosen to sit next to her all the way to the cemetery. He had tried to talk to her but Max frankly felt no interest in what he had to say to her, nor about him and Eleanor or to ask how Max doing after all these years of her absence away from England.

Vane had eventually shut up once he realized he wouldn’t be getting a friendly conversation out of her, choosing to instead look out of the funeral car’s window to huff to his own accord.

It was because of this indifference Max found herself alone as she walked through the overgrown, gnarled pathway of grass up to the cemetery where others waited. None that she knew, but she hadn’t expected any differently when she took into consideration whose funeral she was attending: in fact she would be more shocked if she saw someone she _did_ know here, but alas, the world was content in giving Max a semblance of peace by throwing her into a sea of strangers.

One man looked at her and sniffed with such disdain that Max instantly straightened her back and gave him a smile that coloured his cheeks with shame.

It was easy to remember that she was in Richard Guthrie’s territory still - whether he was breathing or not.

People were quick to remind her regardless.

The sound of incessant chattering and smell of rot (“you can’t smell the dead here Maxine, don’t be so silly!” Her mother had always protested) made Max crinkle her nose and take a few steps further into the bustling crowd of white, old men in order to steer away from it. In her opinion not many of these men smelled any different but Max didn’t want to protest and besides, she was not at this funeral to complain about the smell or for these old men…

It pained her to admit it but she was here for Eleanor Guthrie.

“Where’s his daughter? Shouldn’t she be here by now?”

“Heaven knows! Last time we saw her she was in that old, rotten place that atrocious man she’s friends with hangs about. Drinking no doubt, oh if Richard could see her now…”

“And who is that? Is that her…”

Max sighed and moved away from the gossiping group, eyes lingering on Charles Vane long enough to see his own growing annoyance at being talked about as though he wasn’t there. She could also guess he was irritated that Eleanor was nowhere to be found, just like Max was and in truth it had everything to do with the fact the Englishwoman had invited them both in order to support her – and after everything? The fact Max had left her tiny (however extremely cheap and comfy) flat in Paris to come to England for Eleanor’s sake was of extreme importance, something Max doubted Eleanor had even thought of when she decided to go drinking instead.

It was typical of Eleanor really. So much so that when the bell finally tolled the only anger Max could find was directed at herself for not learning her lesson.

 

**x-x-x**

 

Max smelled the whiskey on Charles Vane as she sat next to him on the pew with their knees barely touching but enough, more than enough, for Max to feel uncomfortable. The priest’s words were a distraction somewhat yet Max could not feel safe within this man’s presence and eagerly wished to move, feeling that each second she was near him was suffocating her to the point she felt like she was going to be sick.

Charles looked over at her a couple of times, his mouth resembling something of an embarrassed smile – like he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar or in his case, his hand down Eleanor’s underwear not long after Max’s departure to Paris.

Not that she blamed him for that. She didn’t feel like she could when she had been the one to walk away, to say au revoir and leave in a puff of smoke with only a broken heart (quickly hardened) to keep her company whereas Eleanor had bodies – warm bodies and warm hands.

Perhaps there was nobody to blame apart from the life that God had thrown at them with a laugh and a quip of ‘good fucking luck with that!’

But Christ did Max want a cigarette, god or no god.

“Same here,” Charles Vane whispered, ignoring the hush he received by two elderly men next to him and like that Max realized she had been tapping her lips as the priest spoke, a dead giveaway if she had ever heard of one. “Hopefully it’ll be fucking over soon.”

Max rolled her eyes but she admitted silently that the same thought had been (was) running through her head at each word that left the priest’s mouth.

It was this reason that made the slamming of old, decrepit wooden doors seem so provocative to Max when it happened, the shushing of the priest and the turning of heads immediate like puppets being controlled by strings. Everyone turned and everyone stared as the woman of the evening, the daughter of the late Richard Guthrie and the progeny of his business, Eleanor Guthrie walked inside with a shine in her eyes and a tremble to her lips.

Max did not bother to look any closer, turning back and meeting eyes with the priest who had stumbled to a standstill. She nodded at him once, silently asking him to forgive Eleanor’s intrusion and continue with the ceremony.

He did so yet Max’s relief only lasted a moment more before Charles Vane had whispered Eleanor over towards them, a spare seat next to Max more than enough room to squeeze inside.

Eleanor’s footsteps were loud but uncaring as she made her way over, mumbles of curses and other words about so and so’s mother were uttered by the time she had made her way over, face stained red with frustration. Max regretted looking at her the moment Eleanor stopped at the end of the pew, eyes locking onto hers and a very noticeable gulping noise escaping seconds after. She looked at Max and fisted her hands together as if to stop the unimaginable that always seemed to linger after Eleanor like a bad smell, the unimaginable that so often led to feelings of hurt and betrayal from the people around her.

Max didn’t gulp (and for that she was thankful) but the emotions that welled up inside her, happiness and anger both, was enough to risk her eyes watering. To think Eleanor could see this overwhelmed her until she could do nothing but swallow noisily and blink rapidly, turning her face away to focus on the priest and the annoyed twittering of the elderly men and women around her.

Eleanor took the hint thankfully and sat next to her with no complaint, bloodshot eyes too fixed ahead with a look of concentration that creased her brow and scrunched her nose. Max recognized the look well: Eleanor was working herself up to do something and if Max knew her as well as she had before Paris then it was likely not something good.

The sensation of an arm being pressed against her neck before quickly being pulled away was enough to shock Max back into reality and sadly, the consciousness of Charles Vane being beside her was awoken right along with it.

His hand rubbed soothing circles against the skin of Eleanor’s neck, large and rough circles. The sight made Max clear her throat once she caught sight of the growing ferocity of his touch and Eleanor’s restrained fury that lingered in her eyes and shoulders like a bomb waiting to go off.

Max would not touch her.

Max would not set her alight for the whole world to see.

“And now as requested, his kind daughter will have a few words to say before we pass Richard’s soul into the new world that awaits us all.” The priest paused, looking over at Eleanor with an unsure smile. “Eleanor, do you have your speech prepared?”

Eleanor’s eyes widened and the way she nodded with such eagerness made the uncertainty that had been writhing in Max’s stomach before only feel more prominent, the snakes turning into scorpions that made her clutch at her stomach as a person did when they knew the worst was to come yet felt powerless to stop it.

“Eleanor…” She started to say but it was too late, Eleanor was already up and moving to the pedestal to take her last and final stand.

“She’s got this,” Charles said beside her with such confidence it caused Max to wonder how wrong a person could be.

The walk from the pew to the stage was surprisingly short but Eleanor made it last in Max’s mind, her steps treacherously slow and her smile and wide eyes containing a cynicism that was both natural and unnatural. Max had never met an Eleanor who had one good thing to say about her father however that did not mean she had not loved him, and so whatever this was…Whatever Eleanor had planned for this moment…

Max knew something was coming to surprise her regardless of everything she knew about Eleanor and the turmoil involved with her father.

“We’re gathered here today to oversee the passing of my father, Richard Guthrie.” Eleanor started out by saying even before she had gotten to the microphone, hand gripping the oak of the pedestal with such determination it made her knuckles run white with strain. “Proud CEO and beloved father, brother and friend. We’ve known him all for such a long time that it isn’t impossible for the myth of him to get mixed up with what was really there when it came to a person like Richard Guthrie.”

Max inhaled sharply and shook her head when Eleanor stopped to seek out the sound and fell on her. No, she wanted to scream but Max couldn’t when she knew the importance of Eleanor having her say before she walked away from this cemetery forever with Richard Guthrie only a distant memory.

Eleanor smiled at her with that sarcastic smile Max had loved once, her lips opening and her tongue forming the words: “Everything you know about Richard Guthrie? A cold fucking lie.”

Gasps all around were enough to make Max both sigh and roll her eyes, already contemplating the many ways she could pull Eleanor off the stage to save her the embarrassment of what she would feel later when she sobered up.

“Richard Guthrie was a fucking cunt sniffing little bastard,” Eleanor continued to rage on, pushing the priest away from her when he tried to get back up on the pedestal to take the microphone away from her. “And he didn’t care one fucking whit about you or anyone. You want to dedicate a whole day to him, hell a song? Try this one: fuck you. FUCK. YOU!”

Eleanor moved away from the microphone then, finally allowing herself to be tugged down by the sleeve of her sweater by the priest, and ushered herself down the aisle of the church with a guffaw at the shocked eyes that fell upon her. She was the queen of damnation and she revelled in the attention her audience, Max and Vane part of them, gave her. They added to the pride that Richard Guthrie had tried so hard to diminish and to Max it made her both beautiful and dangerous to anyone and everyone.

“Uhm, yes, well-“ the priest had returned to the microphone just as Charles Vane got up from his seat to follow Eleanor out, calling her name just as the massive doors opened again and then slammed shut.

Max waited a few moments herself before she grew bored with the asphyxiating discomfort that surrounded her and too got up, meeting eyes with many and ignoring them all.

When she arrived outside Eleanor was gone and Charles was on his phone, begging her to pick up so they could go back to her apartment together.

One day maybe he would learn that the answer to where Eleanor had gone was much simpler than it seemed.

 

**x-x-x**

 

“You lookin’ for company lil lady?” A middle aged man with glasses and long blonde hair slurred at Max when she arrived at the establishment of ‘The One and Four Halves’. Her veil still covered her face and her heels rubbed something awful with the walking she had had to do in order to get here, but Max was determined, even more so when she lifted her veil to show the man her unamused expression.

“I’m looking for a drink,” she said and watched as he immediately stepped aside, seeing the lack of amusement in her features and instantly thinking otherwise in trying to taunt her any further. Max was grateful and waited until he pushed the door open for her before stepping inside.

She saw Eleanor straight away. Her black sweater, skinny jeans and sneakers had looked terribly out of place at the cemetery but looked just at home here in this dingy hovel of a bar which stunk of weed and piss from the open toilets at the back. It made her curious on why Eleanor ever came here but when she saw the prices (long forgotten since Max had left) she could understand why, that and the ginger-haired scruffy looking man that sat beside her was familiar even after the years that passed with her gone.

Her heels made squelching, sticky noises as she moved towards the pair of them and her hand chose to safely rest on the ginger man’s arm rather than the wet surface of the bar he and Eleanor sat at. “James,” she said and smiled at the bleary-eyed look sent her way when the man turned to face her, Eleanor’s face turning instantly after.

“You look good for a woman dressed in black, better than her anyway,” He whispered with a laugh and a shrug in Eleanor’s direction. “Doesn’t take much though.”

“Fuck off Flint.” Eleanor responded and kicked at his stool to make her point clear. “Go find somewhere else to sit. I want…” She trailed off and rummaged into her pockets to look for the cigarette packet Max always knew rested inside the very right side on the back of her jeans. When she found it she offered Max it with a shrug. “I just want to be alone to smoke.”

Flint didn’t seem convinced and guffawed under his breath at her, snatching the cigarette meant for Max and popped it into his mouth before he stalked off outside with his beer in hand.

“Asshole,” Eleanor muttered with red cheeks, tucking the rest of her packet away into the back of her pocket.

Max huffed a laugh that she didn’t feel when she sat down next to her. “Some things never change,” she said, hand moving to call the barman over to them both and order herself a small glass of Chardonnay.

“Fancy.”

“For you maybe,” Max replied and then, realizing how unkind that sounded, turned to face Eleanor with a sympathetic smile. “We can share if you’d like.”

“I’ve had enough,” Eleanor replied and rolled her eyes when Max’s smile widened. “Christ, you’ve been back for a day and you’re already congratulating me for not choosing to drink. With your eyes.”

“Some things never change.” Max repeated with less humour than before, accepting her drink and taking small, near petulant sips of the beverage.

They sat in silence for a little while longer, Eleanor staring at Max while she continued sipping at her drink. Max had only seen Eleanor a few times after their break up and before she had left for Paris but it was not an image she had wanted to fix on her, this desperate, near-mad hunger that pulled her face taut together and made her look as angry and exhausted as she had always been deep inside.

Even when they had been together Max had seen an anger inside of Eleanor that rivalled her own when provoked, but to see it constantly brimming underneath Eleanor’s skin each time she came from her home to Max’s mother’s in order to escape Richard Guthrie’s stifling influences? It had disheartened her and her mother to see Eleanor’s talent getting lost in all that rage and disappointment, her patience thinning as each day she tried harder and harder to impress her father and the construction business he had been head of.

Of course Eleanor had turned to alcohol, yet there was a part of Max that blamed herself for not doing more – even if in truth she had no real idea what she could have done to help.

Eleanor was like the sea and she the wind, they either worked together or they did not and there was nothing more to be said about it.

“Thanks for coming…” Eleanor grumbled against the rim of her glass of water, breaking the silence and drawing Max’s eyes towards her to see that the blonde refused to look at her, happier to look out in front of her at the yellow stained walls of the bar. “Knew you didn’t have to. Charles said you wouldn’t come but guess he was wrong, guess his been wrong about a lot of things.”

Max bit her lip to keep in an exasperated sigh. She had a thick skin and tolerated any news she saw about Charles (and for the past few years, Eleanor too) but being this close again made her skin crawl and caused her throat to close up with annoyance. It was for this reason that she didn’t blame herself entirely for speaking up. “He seemed the type, but then again maybe that is why you two are close in having so much in common.”

She hadn’t expected Eleanor’s bark of laughter and cursed herself for jumping as she had.

“Shit, that was brutal!” Eleanor continued to laugh, eyeing Max for the first time with genuine humour in the curl of her lips and the redness of her cheek which of course quickly dissipated once she pulled herself together. “Fuck you Max, you don’t get to arrive out of the blue all of a sudden and act like you can judge my life and who is in it.”

And then as if one fuck you wasn’t enough Eleanor said it again, snorting into her glass when Max simply arched a brow at her. “I said fuck you.”

“You said it three times.” Max replied with a shrug, putting down her drink and ordering another. “I heard the first time and wondered what I had done to merit it the other two. Perhaps you would care to share?”

Eleanor shrugged and Max didn’t know why but the complete indifference she saw there made her look down at the other woman’s hands, so carelessly pressed against the sticky surface of the bar. It surprised her that where there had been a ring in all of the photos she had seen of Eleanor on her Facebook, there was nothing but a red ring of sore skin.

Max hadn’t cared when she had first seen the ring, however the way her heart clenched at seeing nothing there felt like it told too much about her initial reaction.

She grinned cheekily at the falsehood that lingered in the depths of her heart and begged it to remain strong against everything Eleanor and her own memories would throw at it.

And still it didn’t seem to matter when Max tapped the finger in question, emotions rushing to settle into her chest and its hand catching her by the throat to squeeze out words that she had tried to vainly to keep at bay. “No ring?”

“Marriage is for suckers and people who want to die young.” Eleanor sniggered and pushed her water away from her, turning on the bar stool to face Max with a grin that made Max’s walls feel all the more harder and thick. There was no reason to trust Eleanor when she was still sobering up, and while she didn’t doubt that Eleanor could think properly and make her own decisions her mouth plagued her even sober, so when tipsy…

Max placed her hands in her lap and curled them into fists, crinkling her dress right into her palms. “I don’t think that’s how it works, Eleanor.”

 “I missed you.” Eleanor interrupted Max’s thoughts on where to go next as quickly as Eleanor had interrupted her life the moment they had met, the blonde stumbling through Max’s tattoo parlour with wicked, gleaming eyes full of mischief with James Flint tripping in after her. She looked the same as she had then too, but the grief lingered behind her eyes and made her look paler than usual – a woman who hated everything her father had stood for, who had truly been alone all her life and still felt the same heart-breaking grief of a daughter mourning her father.

Sometimes Max had forgotten how human Eleanor was and distance had only caused that feeling to grow, all until the image she had of Eleanor was in fact hard to place on the Eleanor in front of her, looking at her with a seriousness and despair that pulled at Max’s heart in ways that she thought she was hardened against.

But of course doubt was a solid thing and it lingered in Max’s heart when she saw the red ring that was faded on Eleanor’s skin.

“Clearly.” Eleanor was adept at lying and while Max had come to the realization that with her it was different there was no need to let Eleanor know. Things were hard between them already, it didn’t seem possible for it to get much worse.

Max watched as Eleanor scoffed and turned her face away from her, beet red and angry in both embarrassment and shame. The reality of the matter was that Max knew _how_ much shame did wrap itself around Eleanor like a cloak, it was what made Max talking to her right now so much harder than it needed to be when anger and sympathy wrestled each other in her stomach.

It urged her to hold Eleanor’s hands and when she did it urged her further to squeeze them, drawing Eleanor’s eyes to rest on Max’s own. “It has been two years Eleanor. You didn’t reach out to me all that time and you expect me to…” Max squeezed the blonde’s hands one last time before she sighed, feeling emotionally exhausted when she moved her hands away to press them against her dress again. “Believe this? You made your decision a long time ago when you refused to think of the future.”

“Excuse me for being surprised as all living hell when you proposed to me that moving to Paris would be the ideal step for us,” Eleanor replied with a snap, brows furrowed and her head jerked back to stare heatedly at Max. “I wasn’t ready, alright? I only just came out to my father a year before and I was scared as shit that he was going to drop me from the company and leave me penniless-“

“I would have looked after you Eleanor, you know I would have…”

Eleanor growled, interrupting Max mid-speech. “And I said no way! I’m not going to a country which is far away from everyone I love just to depend on you. I made the right decision in staying here, and maybe, just maybe if you had…” She trailed off, shook her head and took in a deep breath as if trying to work herself up enough she could get the words out with sufficient eloquence. “If you had given me more time instead of just writing me off then things would be different.”

Max drew in a deep breath and turned away from Eleanor, grabbing the last of her glass and gulping down the remnants. She didn’t meet Eleanor’s eyes when she said “I’m leaving” and promptly got up from her seat, giving Flint (recently returned from outside) a glare that made him blink at her rapidly before he shrugged and returned to his single table and beer.

She was half way between Eleanor and the exit when she heard a drunken roar from behind her and turned, just in time to see that Eleanor was face-to-face with a local that was twice her size and almost as menacing with a glare that was as sharp as the glint in his eyes. Max didn’t know what the problem was and half of her screamed to get away from this, away from Eleanor, but there was a much stronger voice that whispered the secret she had always known: her care for Eleanor did not make her weak and so Max remained, waiting.

Mercifully Eleanor was not as drunk as she had been at the ceremony but the redness that had spread from the back of her neck to her face said much, much that Max knew would not lead to anything good.

As long as Eleanor didn’t throw the first-

“This is my fucking chair, dickweed.” Eleanor threw the first insult and Max’s eyes felt like they had rolled into the back of her skull. It was such a ridiculous move and so typically Eleanor that Max remained rooted to the spot, not knowing what to do next.

The gnarled, gruff man leaned right into Eleanor’s face with a growl, the yellow of his teeth showing past his lips. “The fuck you say to me? You come here with that ginger prick…“ He pointed over at Flint who merely raised his brows and continued to drink his beer. “And suddenly you think you can do whatever the hell you want. What? You gonna stop me from taking this fucking chair am you sweetheart?”

Eleanor’s fingers twitched into a fist against the bar. “Yeah.” She said with a feral grin, moving her arm back and upper cutting the local drunk with a force that made him gulp loudly and fall to the floor with a grunt.

It would have been an impressive feat (and Max had to admit she was more than a little awestruck at the surprising strength Eleanor possessed) if not for the fact the drunkard lashed out with his legs soon after, knocking Eleanor to the floor and with a shocking amount of speed, grabbed her by the neck to slam her to the ground once more with incredible force.

Max felt her legs move before she could think twice, and yet they fell still in fear when she saw the drunkard raise his fist and strike Eleanor in the face with a sickening crack following soon after.

All she had to see was the red that coated this man’s knuckles and immediately Max sprang into action, rushing over to grab at the man’s arm before he could lay down another hit and holding it tight to her chest with the little strength she did possess. It was all instinct that made her move Max realized, but it was utter care that made her look down to see an angry yet dazed Eleanor with a bloody nose and a new cut on her cheek from the drunkard’s heavy ring.

“Monsieur-!” Max started, slipping into her mother tongue in her panic.

She fell short when she felt James Flint brush up behind her, bottle in his hand which quickly sprayed everywhere (cheap beer staining Max’s tight, black dress) when he brought it down on the drunk’s head. He swayed for a moment and tried to gain his balance but eventually fell, slumping down to the floor beside Eleanor with a miserable, pained groan.

The peace lasted only seconds after that, the barkeep calling out that he was phoning the police and that if Eleanor, James and Max knew what was good for them they would be long gone before they arrived.

Eleanor was still woozy by the time Max had helped her up from the floor with Flint passing her tissue from her other side, muttering angrily under his breath.

“You can’t kick us out!” The blonde yelled anyway, leaning heavily onto Max’s side and baring her teeth at the barman who glared at her from where he stood, phone pressed to his ear. “Is it because his ginger?” She gestured to Flint and Max only tugged harder on her arm, rolling her eyes at the childishness that she had to witness in Eleanor. “He isn’t even ginger, he’s strawberry blonde.”

The barman jerked his head back, neck straining with effort. “Get out Guthrie before I ban you and Flint from this bar completely!”

Max pulled harder on Eleanor’s side, practically pulling her away from Flint as they stumbled out of the bar’s entrance and moved further down the street so they could prop Eleanor up against a wall in a dirty alley. It wasn’t particularly nice but Max had given up on nice a long time ago, instead choosing practicality as her only ally as she brushed Eleanor down and took the tissues off Flint to dab at Eleanor’s bleeding nose.

“Is it broken?” Eleanor mumbled with bloodied lips, looking up at Flint with a grin. “Nice save by the way, old man.”

Flint rolled his eyes and Max found that she couldn’t disagree with him on it. “Last time we was together in bar you got us banned from it, and that was this morning.” He dabbed a tissue to Eleanor’s nose before he smacked it playfully, grinning at the petulant look he received in reply. “Not broken at least.”

“Dickhead.”

Max found that this was a perfect time to leave yet she remained rooted to the spot, staring at the blood that ran down Eleanor’s cheek to drip onto her clothes. It hadn’t bothered her or Flint to wipe it off, too enraptured in their own conversation on the next time they would meet in the next week coming and where, to notice such a silly little thing that made Max’s insides squirm.

It wasn’t safe around Eleanor, especially after so long and…

It felt as though she had blinked and suddenly Flint was gone, the long coat that he had on flapping in the cold breeze behind him. He was still incessantly muttering under his breath and Max wondered what had happened to him, unsure on why this smart, brilliant man who had won so many medals and trophies for showing off his intelligence was now bumming it out in dingy old flats, uncaring of the world around him.

In watching Eleanor now with her head tilted back and chest breathing out heavy pants in order to keep herself grounded, Max could see the resemblance. There was something destructive about the way both Eleanor and Flint moved, their aura her mother would say, was an aura of people who knew nothing but the destruction of themselves and others.

Unable to be helped, best not get sucked in, she would say, it was too dangerous, don’t bother.

A smile came to Max, a spiteful grin at first that caved into something far more tender when Eleanor looked up, face bloodied but with her own grin to match.

“Got that bastard good, right?” Eleanor whispered, sounding like she had when Max had used to wake up in the morning to see Eleanor’s tickling fingers being the source of her wakefulness.

Melancholy brought her forward to remove the blood on Eleanor’s cheek with her thumb, brows furrowed in concentration. “He got you better.”

“Probably would have sent me to hospital if it hadn’t been for you,” Eleanor said and when Max looked up the blonde quickly jerked her head away, cheeks flushed at how close their faces had been even in spite of their height differences.

“And Flint,” Max said with a shrug and narrowed eyes, trying to gauge where Eleanor was going with this.

If anything Eleanor’s face turned even redder. “Uh, yeah. Flint too.” She quickly recovered however, almost as if she had suddenly been hit and was ready to go, eyes wide and her body thrumming at the closeness of both herself and Max. “I have to admit I didn’t think that you were going to come back for me.”

Max hadn’t either but she found that wasn’t what made her frown. The look on Eleanor’s face looked too in awe and it unnerved her to the point she felt she had to speak, whether she wanted to or not. “Eleanor…I would have done that for anyone.”

It was like lightning had struck her with the speed Eleanor moved her face away once more, clearing her throat loudly.

Max cursed.  

Perhaps she would have done that for anyone but she had learned long ago that words with Eleanor had to be picked carefully, that she was just as vulnerable as she had ever been behind that hard skin that she wore against the rest of the world.

She felt for Eleanor’s cheek, turning the blonde to face her as gently as she could. It didn’t shock her to see barely suppressed tears in Eleanor’s eyes but it still made Max’s heart race that little faster, knowing the answer but being so hesitant to actually place her feet on the path that would lead either to her salvation or ruin.

“Come here,” she said with a sigh, pressing up on her tip toes to wrap her arms around Eleanor’s neck and bringing her in for a hug. She felt Eleanor’s chest constrict and exhale against her to a beat that broke Max’s heart, not sure what else she could do for this grieving woman other than hold her as best as she could.

Eleanor didn’t sob but she clung onto Max all the same, hands crinkling her dress until it was spread uncomfortably over her back.

“I missed you,” the blonde said again, leaving Max to sigh once more as she heard it.

There were many things she was not sure of, especially when it came to Eleanor’s presence but if there was one thing she was certain about? She cared about Eleanor and that was why she pulled back, took her by the hand and asked where they could go to be alone and patch Eleanor up from the brawl she had been in.

Eleanor replied that she knew a place and took Max by the hand, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffing angrily. “Don’t tell Flint I cried, okay?”

It was on the tip of Max’s tongue to reply that she wouldn’t have time enough to tell him, but Eleanor already looked miserable – she wouldn’t chance anything any longer.

“It never crossed my mind,” Max instead said and allowed Eleanor to pull her away from this dirty alley, into the night.


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max and Eleanor reunite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Seems an inadequate greeting with how long it has been since my last update I know. I have no real excuses apart from university life has dragged me down, as well as partaking in other fandoms that have sucked my attention away from Black Sails. I hope to have more time to complete these projects as the year ends, but we'll see. I hope this chapter will fulfill what you have waited for - and maybe a steamy next chapter will also entice!

Eleanor’s nose still dripped with blood during the walk to the old, newly abandoned Guthrie estate on the edge of town. It left splatters of red on the asphalt with each step she took, a dripping sound that went ‘pit, pit, pit’ and distracted Max from the oncoming storm she could see overhead, with a chance of thunder echoing also in the distance.

Max’s heels still rubbed at her as they walked, a reminder of the discomfort that she had felt the whole day. Being with Eleanor right now of course didn’t help, but sacrifices needed to be made and Max still wasn’t sure what would have happened if she had left Eleanor there by herself to be beaten to a pulp.

An angry gnarled sound filled the air and darkness from the clouds above cloaked the streets near the Guthrie estate with an unfeeling embrace, crushing any goodness there with an unforgiving grip.

It only made sense with that thought splatters of rain began to start up, shocking Max and Eleanor to a halt to stare up at the dark, thunderous clouds.

“Weather’s a bitch,” Eleanor muttered aside to her with a laugh, moving her elbow up to press at her bloodied nose and wipe it away. It smeared against her cheeks in the process and to Max it looked as messy and destructive as Eleanor herself was, so she supposed that the look suited her in a rather morbid sort of way.

Max still pressed a thumb against her cheek to wipe some of the quickly drying blood away, pleased that the rain water at least helped with removing some of the remnants away.

“You are a mess,” Max murmured with barely concealed affection before she dropped her hand and urged Eleanor forwards once more.

When they caught sight of the Guthrie estate Eleanor stopped to spit at the ground before she shrugged Max off of her, a new, sullen expression on her face that was darker than the clouds above their heads.

It was a look Max had seen before and she found herself feeling more concerned than angry at Eleanor’s change of demeanour.

She moved back a few steps to let Eleanor breathe, watching intently as the blonde woman moved forward to press her hands against the picket-fenced gate that stood intently outside. Her hands and arms trembled, the only signal that the cold air and the rain was starting to get to her and that getting out of the rain was looking like the more appealing choice.

Max did not touch Eleanor again but she waited at her side, shivering also with her veil, now soaked, plastered to her face.

She couldn’t rightly remember how long she and Eleanor stood out there but the moment Max felt her dress start to dampen too, the rain water now slipping inside of her bra, she moved to touch Eleanor’s arm with a sigh.

“If you plan for me to stay here by making me receive pneumonia and to be hospitalized,” Max started to joke, not truly feeling her own humour but trying anyhow for Eleanor’s sake. “Then you are doing a very good job at it.”

Unfortunately her intent of a joke ended up being lost on Eleanor, who at the mention of Max becoming even the slightest bit ill practically jumped from where she stood previously, muttering a string of ‘fucks’ as she ushered Max inside. What lay there was the overgrown garden that had a neat patio to lead up to the front door, painted a pearly white colour and stood out to almost obscene amounts in the dark, grey atmosphere of this rainy night.

With the way Eleanor looked at this place? Max wondered if hell in fact awaited them at the front door and this wet, grey outdoors was the sanction that they needed.

Regardless they stumbled their way towards the tall, looming building and Max tried not to wince when Eleanor braced herself with her back against the door, arms stretched out wide and her eyes full of fear.

To Max she looked like the child in that portrait that had hung above Richard Guthrie’s desk in his study: defiant against an oncoming storm that had no shape, yet fearful of what lay in front of her without anyone else knowing why.

Max didn’t think to push her and instead waited again, eyes roving up the near pristine walls of the estate to the very top window where she could just about see a wooden board pressed against the glass.

It read: Sold.

Her heartbeat, Max noticed, most definitely skipped a beat at seeing those big, red letters splayed across the board.

“It is already sold? But why?” Max asked with a lilt to her voice that she knew did not speak of happiness or sadness, rather confusion on what was happening in front of her very eyes. “Did something-“

“I hated the place and just wanted everything gone as soon as possible,” Eleanor interrupted with a smack of her lips, shrugging at the surprised look that Max shot her before she chose to ignore it completely by turning her back. Her hands went into her back pocket and out came a key, a large heavy looking piece of iron that twirled dangerously around Eleanor’s finger for a moment before she knelt and unlocked the door.

“Stupid piece of shit lock,” Eleanor grumbled, a pout on her face when she turned and opened the door to let Max inside before her. “Don’t know why anyone would put a lock down that low, must have thought he was some kind of comedian taking the piss out of our butler.” She sighed angrily as Max passed then, a small grumble of ‘dickhead’ passing her lips when she too stepped inside and closed the door behind them.

What awaited Max when she stepped inside didn’t fail in taking her breath away, but not for the reasons it had done so in the past.

The entrance was not as splendid as it once had been, now stripped bare of any portraits or instruments that had been there before; including Eleanor’s harp that Max had always run her fingers across whenever she had visited. And Eleanor’s mother’s old tea set that she had acquired from her own mother when in Russia that had sat just near the mantle place that led to the kitchens? It too had seemingly vanished into thin air and left the entrance hall looking bare, decrepit and most of all: lonely.

Max of course knew that the estate hardly had any love about it in the first place, but where the walls had been at least filled with previous life they instead thrived with a nothingness that sat heavy in Max’s stomach when she gazed around.

It was a hollow place and it only made Max wonder what else had changed apart from the entrance hall they now stood in.

When Max removed her gaze from that of the four walls surrounding her she saw that Eleanor was watching her, her lower lip trapped between her teeth. There was something in that look that said so much of what Eleanor could not find the strength to, and the intensity behind it was absolutely ruining. To know that Eleanor, so usually capable of speech and intelligence when pressed, only looked at her and could not find a single word to say?

Max wanted to reach out and touch Eleanor’s bloodied face again, but the desire to do so made her feel more uneasy than she had when she had been at the church.

Eleanor was a dangerous force that Max felt herself pulled towards. A black hole of sorts, consuming and wrecking and crushing…

And Max still cared about her, in spite of everything that had happened, in spite of all those years apart and all those beds she had laid in with various different people that looked nothing like the woman she had spent so many years with…

It was a realization that almost forced Max out the front door in an effort to escape it.

Both of them had soured their relationship and then friendship throughout distance, yet now they were here again, and together…

Fortunately Max found herself being shaken out of her thoughts by Eleanor clearing her throat, drawing attention to the sopping wet tendrils of blonde hair that clung to her face and neck like vines.

“We should probably go upstairs to get ourselves cleaned up,” Eleanor said quietly, her head bobbing up and down in a display of most likely trying to reassure herself that she had not stepped out of bounds and that everything was going smoothly and non-confrontational. “You know where the bathroom is right? If not I’ll just take you there, I need to go clean my face up probably and…”

“I have no clothes,” Max interrupted sharply, the suddenness of being completely alone with Eleanor half-dressed now seemed much more dangerous and threatening than ever. “I’ll just call a taxi and be out of your hair, yes mon ami?”

Eleanor pulled a face at her, both amused and full of disbelief.

“ _No_ mon ami. Come on Max, you really want to go out in this crappy weather?” Eleanor laughed as she took Max’s hand made what felt like an anchor drop in Max’s stomach, the sudden weight robbing her of speech and making her feet drag after the blonde when Eleanor started towards the staircase. “It’s pissing it down and besides…”

When they were halfway up the stairs Eleanor stopped, looking at Max over her shoulder in such a demure way that told Max there was something the other woman wanted to ask, but was unsure on how to say it.

Eleanor’s lips thinned as she spoke, a mumbling noise near enough making her next words incomprehensible. “You can stay in my room and I’ll take my father’s. It won’t be awkward.”

Max hoped her sigh of relief ended up being soaked up by the coolness of the four walls that surrounded her as she continued the climb up Eleanor’s stairs, up to the second floor.  That too felt and looked just as dismal and alone as the first floor, the corridors that broke off into bedrooms also bare of any life that had once been there. It was a world that was too desolate for Max’s comfort and a part of her couldn’t help following Eleanor that little bit closer, only barely touching her but enough to feel like she wasn’t completely alone here.

Together they advanced down the corridor together before they came to a stop outside the room Max recognized to be Eleanor’s, the one and only room that Max guessed was not completely bare of life. Though it did beg the question why of all the other rooms that had been cleared out, why did Eleanor’s look lived in, what with the stacks of art work displayed everywhere and the shelves of books, so recently dusted?

Max knew that Eleanor had noticed her curiosity by the smile on her face and the way the blonde met her smile with a tilt of her head, to accompany the devilish smile.

“I camped out here a few nights back to make sure nobody took my stuff. Told Charles he wasn’t allowed in here,” Eleanor added quickly, brows knitting tightly together at remembering that the subject of Charles was a tender one. “So he won’t be bothering us. He knows this place is off-limits to him.”

The silence that Eleanor received became Max’s answer for the next few minutes as she entered the large room, still familiar even after so long. The walls were, for example, the same shade of sickly orange (now dull due to the weather outside) that Max had always hated and had teased Eleanor for when she was first shown this room. Eleanor had always protested it had been her father who had wanted the walls that colour, but Max had known better and showed that knowledge whenever she gifted Eleanor with something of the same shade of orange. It was a constant love for orange that scattered around Eleanor’s room, the scarf that was knotted on her headboard, the use of it on Eleanor’s paintings and the darker shades of it obvious in the tarnish of her boots…

It was a colour now that Max knew Eleanor did not wear anymore, adopting a wardrobe of dark reds, blues and blacks.  An Eleanor who only looked at the old orange of her room with barely there memories, an Eleanor who did not wish to remember…

There was no judgement from Max for that. Eleanor had to move on too, they both did. Max had never expected Eleanor to linger in the past, though perhaps sometimes she wished it only because that Eleanor seemed much happier than the one standing a few feet away from her.

It took only a glance around the room to see that Eleanor had stopped inches from the door that led to her en suite, looking at Max with a hopefulness that was apparent in the tight knit of her brows when she furrowed them.

“Don’t you remember where the bathroom is?” Eleanor asked.

“I’m just taking your room in,” Max replied with a wistful noise that she couldn’t quite manage to contain. It didn’t bother her that it escaped, mind too focused on her surroundings and how a room could be so different from the person that slept in it. “It is…Not like you anymore.”

Eleanor scoffed, but Max could see by her eyes that it was not meant to be unkind. “Orange always was a terrible colour, I guess.”

“You _love_ the colour orange,” Max whispered, walking past Eleanor and into the bathroom. There she could see on the toilet seat was a pile of old pyjamas, a set that Eleanor must have found for her when she had been busy looking around her room. “You loved it so much in fact,” Max continued, trailing off with a small smile coming to her face when she picked up the old, long gone ratty, orange pyjama top and pressed it against her chest. She turned to see Eleanor was looking at her, head tilted awkwardly to rest against the frame of the door. “That I remember buying this shirt for you. This most…ridiculously orange shirt I have ever bought.”

Eleanor laughed, her teeth and face stained with blood, and still looked like that of the Eleanor Max had known years back.

“No wonder you didn’t complain when I took it off you,” The blonde woman teased, and then, as if remembering who and what they were, fell silent and shrugged her shoulders as if to rid herself of the awkwardness that had suddenly fallen upon them.

“Anyway,” Eleanor said, clearing her throat and moving to stand next to Max, facing the mirror and already bending over to wet her hands. “Need to get this blood off me.”

Max nodded in approval and quietly, making sure to look straight ahead and nowhere near Eleanor, began to get undressed.

It was a process that did not take very long and when Max was finished she saw that Eleanor had gone, a bloodied face flannel being the only thing that lingered of her. It was ironic really, Max thought, how a person who was as fleeting as the wind, could still linger in a place without anyone really noticing unless they looked hard enough.

In noticing Eleanor’s absence Max took in her appearance, smiling sadly at the familiarity of the clothes that she now wore in contrast to the strange, unfeeling clothes she had been wearing for the funeral. It almost felt like she was at home here, but Max found herself not willing to fall into that trap of getting comfortable – especially when her feelings for Eleanor still caused her such confusion.

Her feelings for Eleanor was more of that of a crush, of course, but Max also knew there was no future in her; that she was so wild, and free and Max never wanted to control her…But she could not be the same as Eleanor, there was just too much order about her, a perfectionist at heart.

Feeling absolved with that knowledge Max nodded at herself in the mirror and turned to leave…

Only to find Eleanor was back, her own pyjamas (red lace) on, to come collect the face flannel she had left behind. And like that Max felt like she had taken two steps forward and another three back, right back to the beginning.

Max found herself smiling. “Ah, there _you_ are. I barely recognized you with all that blood.”

“I’ve been taking lessons off Flint, bloody bastard,” Eleanor said and smiled back, shrugging sheepishly as she reached over to retrieve the flannel. “But I’m going to bed right now. You can keep the night light on if you want, but it’s being turned off around 12 I think. The house is being-“

“Eleanor, I get it.” Max interrupted, stepping under her arm and then past her to escape her presence from the bathroom to fall into Eleanor’s room, so vastly different that it instantly felt safer in being there.

That was the one true escape from being in there. And so that was where Max went.

Max was already tucked into Eleanor’s bed with her knees pulled up to her chin by the time Eleanor had vanished back into her father’s room, no doubt as sour looking in her expression as she had looked when she had left. Not that Max blamed Eleanor for that, knowing that the other woman was only sleeping there because she hadn’t wanted to make it awkward for her. A part of Max wanted to ask to swap beds but she stayed put, staring up at the ceiling to see Eleanor’s disco ball still attached to the hook of her light, wondering why that of all things had not been thrown away a long time ago.

Her thoughts were quickly dashed when she heard her phone start to buzz on the side cabinet, the familiar face of her mother flashing up on the screen.

“Hello Mama,” Max greeted her mother in a whisper, shaking her head at what sounded like she had interrupted was a rant. “It’s Max.”

“I know it is you Maxine, I was the one who phoned you!” Came her mother’s worried reply. “Where are you? I know you said you would be late, but this is Eleanor we’re talking about here. What has she gone and done now?”

Max sighed and pressed her phone harder against her ear, trying to gather the strength that would be needed in order to answer.

“ _Nothing_ Mama, she just…” Max’s eyes went to her open door where she could just see Eleanor’s own light was on, her shadow casting over the wall displaying that the other woman was lying in bed, a book in hand. She didn’t know how to answer her mother’s question, because after all, there was nothing quite like Eleanor, and understanding her? Next to impossible. “She just needed some company. The house is so cold and lonely.”

Her mother’s sigh that sounded much like that of the long suffering answered her, filling Max with a pessimism that only intensified at the reply she received. “Max I know you’ve said that you and her are long since done, but I _know_ you ma belle, I know how you can _be_ around her. I just don’t want you to do anything you may regret later on.”

Max knew her mother had a point and so didn’t try to argue any different, feeling that doing so would be futile anyway. It was true that Eleanor had this power about her, a power that made her so alluring and irresistible, that drove men and women alike swarming to surround her with promises and gifts. That was Eleanor Guthrie and Max knew she too had once been ensnared in her grasp, and did not wish to fall into it again – the pain was just too much for her to handle.

And yet there was something about Eleanor that called to her, a siren’s song, and sweet to the ear, to lure Max into the deep, vast oceans of Eleanor Guthrie and the wild whirlwind that was her world.

Seeing Eleanor had only been a reminder of that, and if Max was being truthful? She had no idea how to stop herself from succumbing and falling head first into everything she had been warned about, to defy all odds.

When she looked over towards Eleanor’s room again she was met with no shadow of Eleanor’s presence.

Max let out a sigh and pulled her comforter tighter around herself, screwing her eyes shut and focusing on her own voice when she replied with: “Mama, you can trust me.”

Her mother’s voice felt like that of a chord around Max’s throat, ready to snap. “It isn’t you I’m worried about Maxine. The girl hasn’t figured herself out yet, and I don’t want you feeling obliged to try and help her – she has to figure it out on her own.”

A strange tugging sensation pulled at Max’s eyelids, luring her to open her eyes and see that the light of the en suite had just flickered on, announcing Eleanor’s presence.

Max’s reaction was instant, like a shot bursting from the nozzle of a gun, spitting smoke and fire.

She ended the call, switched her phone off and sat up in bed, back as rigid as the block of wood that rested against her back.

“Eleanor?” Max called out, a lump in her throat that she didn’t know how to get rid of and only appeared more apparent when the woman who had terrorized her mind the moment she stepped off that plane, made an entrance at the doorway.

Her hair, spun like gold, looked almost eerily ethereal in the en suite’s light. Max thought it almost made Eleanor look angelic, but if Eleanor was to be any angel, she reasoned, it would be that of a fallen one. That was a thought that was light and ticklish at her throat, and Max was sure it showed on her face when Eleanor’s lips curled, a Cheshire grin.

“Yeah? Sorry I just remembered I didn’t brush my –“

“Come here. I want to talk to you.” Max demanded. A part of her felt guilty for demanding like she was, but she stopped that feeling, a unique predatory stinging in her chest that clawed at her like a rampant, hungry animal.

Eleanor slinked towards her. “Sounds serious.”

“What do you want with me?”

“Eh?” Eleanor shot back, looking confused.

Had she gone too far, Max wondered, suddenly feeling as though she had just made a grave mistake in digging up memories of old that had long deserved to remain buried. But she could not deny that despite her mother’s insistence Max couldn’t let those memories just go so fleetingly, a goodbye not even worthy of the title. And even in knowing how this story ended and her (quickly falling) resistance Max could not find it within herself to dismiss their relationship – to crave more answers, to push and pull it out of Eleanor. To suck her dry.

From the look of concern in Eleanor’s eyes there was little hesitation in Max to think that the other woman didn’t know what she spoke of.

 That hesitation disappeared completely when Eleanor ended up sitting right beside her, the tips of her toes pressed to the solid wall, her back facing Max and her eyes a steely grey that made Max shiver at how the luminous rays of the moon hit off them.

A hand that had instantly gone to the knee suddenly dropped, falling away to rest on Max’s own. The tension that was apparent in the palm (taut like a knot) told Max much about Eleanor and the affection that even now she still struggled to express.

It made her trying somewhat heart-warming.

“I don’t want anything.” Eleanor whispered with a shrug that spoke volumes of the uncertainty that Max’s mother had warned about. “Or at least I don’t really know what I want. I haven’t figured it out yet.” The blonde woman’s features creased into a scowl, eyes fiery and alert. “I just know that I’m not on your list, probably never have been since you went to Fra-“

“That’s not fair Eleanor and you know it!” Max interrupted with her own scowl, a snarl of an upper lip accompanying it. “We have argued about this so many times. Max had to go her own way. You had to go your own way too, and you did. You have Charles, James and you still have a share in your father’s business. You cannot be mad at me for living my life when you too have done the same thing.”

Eleanor’s hand twitched but it did not move, rather relaxing from the tensed state it had been in only a few moments ago. An admission of acceptance – one that Max knew well, having been with Eleanor so long to know what each flicker of movement meant, a curl of a finger, a relaxed posture of her palms…

She could read Eleanor like a book even after all this time and Max supposed there was a part of Eleanor that would always resent her for that.

When Eleanor turned her face away, jaw locked in such a sad comparison to her unperturbed hands, Max knew it was better not to ask. To wait. That was what Eleanor needed, patience that a few years ago Max had not had. Had not been willing to have.

Patience was its own reward Max’s mother had always said. And so it was when Eleanor (face still turned away, posture so small and fragile like a child’s) spoke in a hushed tone. “Did you miss me? In Paris?”

“Oui.” Max said and couldn’t stop a giggle when Eleanor’s face snapped towards her, obviously not expecting the swiftness of her reply. “You truly think so little of me Eleanor?”

Eleanor’s response was as fast as Max’s had been, a look of shock startling her to attention. “No! It’s just that I don’t think I’d blame you. I remember being really angry when I found out you was leaving.” A crooked (near childish) smile was flippant enough to appear. “I was being a child and tossed the huge teddy that you had bought with you when you moved in here out of the window. It hit you in the face, remember?”

Max felt that memory hit her as hard as that teddy bear had when it had happened. But this time it only brought a smile and a tickling sensation to her chest, like a cough sweet that made her tongue tingle.

“Yes,” she whispered, tilting her head up to see that Eleanor was staring down at her with an eagerness to her proximity that made the defences Max had reassured herself was up, start to crack. “I remember. You were not very apologetic about that, mademoiselle.”

Eleanor’s laughter reminded Max of the tinkling noise a chandelier made when disturbed. “Mademoiselle?” She joked, still laughing even as she crept forward with eyes failing to stop themselves from being drawn to Max’s lips. “It’s been a while since you called me that.”

Max felt her heart skip, skip and skip again until she regained her senses, inhaling sharply and drawing Eleanor’s gaze up to her own.

“No Eleanor, we can’t.” her hands went to Eleanor’s chest, crinkling the thin material of her shirt when Max screwed her hands into fists. It of course was only used to drag Eleanor forward, a realization that Max found out far too late with her lips brushing against Eleanor’s own and the whispered name of ‘ _Charles_ ’ passing between both of their opened mouths.

Eleanor choked on the name like smoke had been inhaled into her lungs but instead of moving away she only clutched on tighter. Her hand moved to wrap around the nape of Max’s neck, crushing them tighter together with Eleanor’s lips moving from Max’s lips to trickle down her neck. An agonizing trek that left Max gasping at the sensation of teeth and tongue, the cause of warmth curling and coiling in her gut.

The whisper of Charles had felt like someone had shoved ice down into her stomach, chilling Max to the bone, but there was of course Eleanor and that fire (strong, unbelievably strong) that melted her to such a degree that Max could do nothing but cling onto Eleanor’s passion and let it consume her. And while she knew that it was wrong, what they were doing, there was a part of Max that knew there was no other choice. The moment she had stepped off of that plane, the moment she had seen Eleanor again…

Everything had led to this.

Even when her words betrayed the logical side of her (“Eleanor, Eleanor, Eleanor no…”) Max did not let up on her grip, hands moving to tug the shirt from Eleanor’s body, baring her chest and stomach to the cold, harshness of the establishment. Her nipples hardened against Max’s hands when she squeezed them and then it was Eleanor’s turn to lose breath, gasping away from Max’s skin to dig her nose into the crook of her neck, pleading for more.

Max pushed Eleanor down onto her childhood bed with such force that it left Eleanor breathless, looking up at her with wide eyes and a heaving chest that made heat pool between Max’s thighs, unable to believe how quickly Eleanor’s ineloquence would drive her to distraction and desire both. Not, she realized, there was much need to add anything to the desire she felt for Eleanor for that had long spiralled out of control and had left her paralyzed.

Eleanor stared up at her, bare and her lower lip swollen. A divine slice hell that was wrapped up in all the parcelling of heaven.

“Eleanor…” Max whispered again, this time into the other woman’s mouth as Eleanor surged forward, dragging her down further into the warmth of her tongue and mouth.


	3. Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have a lot to talk about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so idk where to begin but maybe saying a big thank you to EVERYONE who has commented and left kudos and bookmarked, yadda yadda, because i do honestly mean it that without you guys supporting me through this then idk how i would have done it? to know that me writing this you guys were there to comment and give me support??? THAT MADE ME EMO TBH. and it made me want to complete this. and yeah, i'm not the best at updating, so god, i can't thank u all enough? i just can't? just leave me to cry a lil

Max trapped Eleanor’s hands over her head, crisscrossed at the wrist and reddening under her fierce grip.

She was like art from old; tarnished with scars of misuse, bruised around the corners and yet so beautiful that Max allowed herself a moment to simply stare down at Eleanor and wonder what else she could do in order to fully embrace the image that stared up at her from in between her thighs.

There was no license on Eleanor and there never would be, no mark that would signify her as belonging to anyone but herself and even that made Max’s heart ache with longing, a longing that was dangerous and cruel and something that pulled at her until there was nothing but desire and danger – and what an intoxicating tonic that was.

Supple, cold white hands touched Max at the bottom of her spine, pulling her from her dizzying thoughts to see Eleanor watched her with her pale nipples hardened and her neck a dazzling white from the moon’s rays.

It was enough, more than enough for Max to lean down and kiss at Eleanor’s wrists, then her cheek and then the hollow of her neck.

Eleanor laughed and the vibration of it made Max hum, her fingers wrapped around Eleanor’s hands tightening.

“You’re acting like I’m going to break, Max.” Eleanor said with another huff of laughter, her lips brushing against the top of Max’s forehead where she had turned to look at her.

Max smiled and shook her head at Eleanor’s brash attitude that was still there, even in the midst of all this sadness. It was so Eleanor and that made her heart race, damning her with such certainty that when she moved to brush her nose against Eleanor’s own it was like she could already feel the weight of her own decision trapping her at each breath that was passed between them.

She dropped a kiss to Eleanor’s nose before she brushed it once more with her own, eyes refusing to leave Eleanor’s own, drawing a grin from the blonde that if asked Max would deny that it had ever (and certainly not now) made her quake with want.

“You know better than anyone,” Eleanor said again, this time lower and her eyes narrowing at each passing word, “how unbreakable I am. So Max, why not-“

Max squeezed and the reaction of Eleanor wincing made her shake with laughter. “Is that so, Eleanor?”

“Shut up-“

“ _You want me to fuck you?_ ” Max husked in a whisper, interrupting Eleanor and feeling herself shiver with desire when she saw how visible Eleanor’s eyes darkened at the tone Max had addressed her with. “Is that what mademoiselle wants?”

It had been years but to Max it felt like only days since the last time she had explored Eleanor’s body like she was now. She knew each nook, each cranny and each little tickle and prod that made Eleanor twitch, groan and murmur. She knew it all like the back of her hand if there was something Max knew Eleanor liked, it was her talking as she undresses her and took her in her mouth, each vibration, each swipe of her tongue…

Eleanor’s eyes clenched shut when Max pressed the tip of her tongue to Eleanor’s lower lip, begging for an entrance that the younger woman reluctantly gave with a gasp that made Max tremble at the power behind it.

She devoured Eleanor’s mouth with teeth and tongue, biting hard on the younger woman’s lower lip until Eleanor gasped and looked up at her, lip bloodied and eyes dark.

“Better?” Max asked with a tilt of her head and a teasing swipe of her fingers across Eleanor’s bare stomach, enjoying the shivers it pulled from the soft skin.

Eleanor nodded and that small tilt of the head along with that flicker of tongue against a torn lip made Max embrace Eleanor once more. She released her wrists and cupped the nape of the blonde’s neck, pouring the passion she hoped would not be spent in the morning right into Eleanor’s mouth and shuddering in delight when Eleanor returned that passion in kind.

Hands tore away the orange pyjama shirt from her and immediately Max felt her bra being pushed from her breast and Eleanor’s hot mouth wrapped around her nipple, her palm squeezing the other with such a hard pinch that the distinction of pleasure and pain had Max groaning, her fingers scratching up and down the other woman’s back.

With each suck of Eleanor’s mouth around her led to a ripple of heat roam throughout Max, settling to pool in between her thighs and rob her of speech when Eleanor spread her thighs and forced Max onto her back with a devilish grin on that childish face that never failed to infuriate and arouse.

Eleanor stripped the bottom half of Max’s pyjamas, taking her underwear right along with it and tossing it to the side. It landed on Eleanor’s desk, scattering papers and pens to the carpet floor with a grace that Eleanor did not have, the way she lorded her body over Max’s own.

Max sighed at the sensation of Eleanor’s hips pressed into hers, the feeling of slick heat and damp curls had its own intoxicating pull and so without warning Max pulled the blonde harder against her, spreading her thighs and crossing her ankles together to trap Eleanor to her as their hips rocked together with a fierceness that had no rhythm.

They had fucked like this many times and still Max could not get over how quick Eleanor was. It was as though each thrust of their hips set of a fire in her that she couldn’t control, and once upon a time (when things had been easier, where teasing had been outside of the bedroom too) Max had joked that Eleanor was just ‘weak’ and Eleanor had repaid her with red wrists and bites that her mother had blushed at when she had seen them.

But now?

Eleanor rocked against her as though the act alone was the only thing that kept her grounded, thighs trembling at each powerful jut of her hips against Max’s, a stark contrast to the slow movement of her fingers that curled under Max’s spine to lift her until their hips slowed to a halt and Max sat there, breathing heavily while on Eleanor’s lap.

The other woman’s nose pressed against Max’s cheek, sighing with a freedom that sounded the most beautiful sound coming from Eleanor Guthrie.

Max moved to touch the blonde’s flustered, pink cheeks with a giggle. “Are you already done?”

A grunt answered her and again Max laughed, tilting her head back to see that Eleanor, despite her reddened cheeks, still looked at her through predatory, hungry eyes that made her shiver and for her thighs to instantly spread to display the shining moisture that coated her inner thighs. It was a sight that, if possible, made Eleanor’s eyes grow darker and her kisses were no longer gentle but fiery and full of bite that left Max grinning with each gasp that escaped her as Eleanor mauled at her neck while her hands clawed up and down her back.

Max grabbed one of those hands and brought it between her thighs with a rasp and a shake of her head. “Do not tease, it has been too long.”

For once Eleanor listened and with a bruising kiss to Max’s jaw, she slipped a single finger inside of the woman on top of her and watched intently as Max hissed, her eyes slamming shut briefly before they opened and stared Eleanor down with a ferocity that did not do anything but make her grin, delirious in her need.

“Thought you were going to fuck-“ Eleanor decided to tease before she was cut off by Max’s palm against her lips and the sensation of Max lifting herself up and away from Eleanor’s finger before grinding back down again with a sigh. It was a sigh that had no right to drive lust through Eleanor’s blood, but it had, and with a near feral growl she moved Max away from her and rubbed a second finger through Max’s heat before slipping inside.

Eleanor batted Max’s hand away, groaning at the ruthless rhythm Max had fallen in immediately as she rode her hand. It was as though they had never parted, so familiar was this and yet from the way Eleanor watched, lip bitten to shreds, Max could tell the blonde wanted more than this and so it did not surprise her when Eleanor leaned forward to capture their lips together.

It was expected for Eleanor to be as passionate in fucking (Max dared not to think of it as anything else) as she was in everything else, but the desperate, open want in her kisses left Max writhing without control until her lungs burned and her head spun. When Eleanor’s thumb pressed against her clit Max could only see stars, blinding her to the point she could only shut her eyes and continue to drink from Eleanor’s mouth, panting heavily and feeling faint. It was only when Eleanor angled her face away did Max suck in a huge gust of breath, her eyes fluttering open to stare up at the darkness above them, becoming lost in the motion of Eleanor’s fingers inside of her and the vast black outline of Eleanor’s ceiling.

It was only when Eleanor’s hand curled around her neck to press their foreheads, damp with sweat, together did Max see that Eleanor looked at her in a way she had never done so before and thus both intrigued and scared her.

“Look at me,” Eleanor demanded and like a shot going off, Max felt herself clench around Eleanor’s skilled fingers and let out a long, husky moan. It was said with a tone that made Max feel like jelly, and she was more than aware that Eleanor knew that too from how she kept repeating her name. “Max…Look at me Max, don’t look away from me. Keep watching me, Max… _Maxine_ -“

Max’s breath hitched and again she clenched around Eleanor’s fingers and came with a whimper, a whimper of pain and pleasure that she could not describe to anyone, ever. It felt right however, coming from Eleanor, a mixture of pleasure and pain that left Max reeling both physically and emotionally when she had finally come down from her high with eyes still fixed onto blackened blue.

Eleanor stared back at her and the odd warmth of affection that had settled in Max’s heart at the first sight of her seemed to explode, catching her off guard and leading her to nuzzle against a pale shoulder, eyes closed to get lost completely in the warmth of Eleanor’s touch.

It was only when Eleanor started to shift under her did Max move from the other woman’s lap and push the blonde onto her back, kissing her vigorously all the way. The aggressiveness of before had departed from Max after her orgasm, had reduced her to nothing but a purring feline near enough with her kisses a mere tickling sensation against Eleanor’s lips, down to her throat to stop and press at the swell of each breast. She was gentle to the point of aggravation and it didn’t take long (just as Max had known it wouldn’t) for Eleanor’s fingers to loop and twist themselves into her hair, dragging her lips in between smooth, wet thighs to kiss in between them and curl her tongue teasingly against Eleanor’s clit. It led to Eleanor’s hips bucking but when Max tried to pull away Eleanor only held on tighter, keeping her there to lick and kiss with only her hands able to press Eleanor down, to ground her and keep her steady.

As she had predicted it did not take long for Eleanor to crumble with a hoarse shout that left Max grinning when she finally moved away, face wet and lips reddened and rough with Eleanor all over her.

Eleanor relaxed with a long, elevated sigh and Max watched (wiping her face as she did so) with her head cocked to the side and her brow furrowed, intrigued. There was something that always was intriguing about Eleanor and that was what had led her here in the first place, or so Max reasoned with herself.

It was that thought that made her pause on going to Eleanor, choosing instead to sit with her chin perched on one of her knees while the other curled underneath her. Max felt oddly like a child waiting for approval, which she felt was an alarming reaction to have considering what she and Eleanor had just finished doing only moments ago. And yet here she was, watching Eleanor who in return watched her, both of them silent.

But then Eleanor reached out with a smile (sated and happy) to grab Max’s arm and ease her towards her until they were pressed together: naked, nose-to-nose and the air between them becoming warming with each inhale and exhale that passed between their engorged red lips. They were so close that Max almost felt certain that if she closed her eyes and ignored the past 24 hours then Richard Guthrie would be alive and she and Eleanor would be up here, together and defiant in knowing that he was only down the hall and could lose his patience with them at any moment and strike.

Max did close her eyes and only opened them when Eleanor traced her hand over every inch of her body to come to a stop at her hip.

“You know for someone who owns a tattoo parlour,” Eleanor started to say in a whisper before she cleared her throat and continued louder. “You don’t have any tattoos. At all.”

“My mama would never approve. She is grateful that I am doing well in Paris, that is all. She does not think I need one and neither do I.” Max replied with a shrug, suddenly uncomfortable at the proximity between them and the intimacy that she had been lulled in by Eleanor before and the memory of how quick Eleanor had been to dash it away when their relationship had been threatened.

Eleanor watched her go and Max attempted to harden her heart at seeing the blonde look so confused and hurt at the sudden cold front she had come face-to-face with now that their intimacy was over.

“Tattoos are more permanent than I am comfortable with,” Max admitted sullenly and found that this hardening of her heart was much more bearable when she talked and blocked Eleanor out completely. “This you must know, yes? The discomfort of permanence.”

A sudden movement from behind gave Max cause to turn around to see that Eleanor eyed her angrily, her messy hair enhancing the look of fury that sat so perfectly on the blonde’s face. She looked as though she was a volcano waiting to go off any second, but it did not bother Max in the slightest. She was well aware of her words and knew the consequence of what she said, nevertheless she still chose to ignore it rather than face it head on and so with a roll of her eyes Max turned away and settled onto her opposite side with her back to Eleanor’s anger.

Eleanor’s painful sounding inhale made her flinch, but still Max did not move and only waited.

It didn’t take long.

“What was this? A pity fuck?” Eleanor practically growled. “You think that we can fuck and then go back to being hostile? I cheated on Charles with you-“

“Is that supposed to make me feel better about this?!” Max interrupted with a snap that she was almost positive made the room temperature drop. “That you cheated on a man who you love, a man who loves you, for me? Is that supposed to make me not hostile to you at all, to instead embrace you and love you? Is that what you want from me Eleanor?”

Max still did not turn to look at the younger woman behind her, fists curled around the folds of the duvet cover that she had pulled over her after her finished intimacy with Eleanor. It was safer, she repeated over and over, it was safer to just pretend that this was the last and final time her and Eleanor would be like this.

When silence answered her Max only felt a flicker of disappointment linger in her heart that she quickly squashed down with a shake of her head and a sigh. There was no room for disappointment, no room at all for it and so she closed her eyes and begged for sleep to come in hope that with it the expectation of Eleanor risking something (anything) for her would leave with it.

Silence had been Eleanor’s ally for as long as Max had known the woman and because of it she felt foolish to ever think that Eleanor would bottle up the courage to abandon it, foolish and naïve, just like coming here had been in the first place.

Max felt even more naïve when the touch of Eleanor’s hand against her elbow and the press of her breasts against her back made her eyes fill up with tears. The foolishness of herself at thinking she could handle this, being so close and vulnerable beside Eleanor, and of course not listening to her mother and returning home straight away.

Eleanor was gnarled and brutish and so thoroughly torn into pieces that Max had no idea how to be around her. But she also loved Eleanor, and Max hated herself for it. To love such a person who knew her inside and out, who had broken her heart and had not even let their bed become cold before filling it with someone else…

Surely this was what torture was.

And surely what filled her at Eleanor’s arm around her waist was hate, hate at being touched by someone who so cheaply had thrown her aside, hate at the longing that the touch had filled her with and hate at…

Eleanor breathed down her ear with such hesitance it felt as though her presence was poison in itself.

“I don’t know what I want.” She admitted with a painful swallowing noise that led Max to sighing and rolling onto her side, reaching out to grab at the back of Eleanor’s hair with such a hard grasp it pulled a pained noise from her lips that looked to be now bitten to shreds, a clear sign of her anxiety.

She looked scared and as usual Max couldn’t find anything inside of her strong enough to blame Eleanor for it. All she could find was this infuriating amount of love that she had no idea what to do with apart from toss it aside again and again, getting tired each time she did so but also knowing that if she did not try to stop it then the consequences would be far more dire than if she simply just let her love for Eleanor happen – again.

This torturous feeling however did give her room to speak, even if Max knew in her heart of hearts that she didn’t want to.

“I know,” she replied to Eleanor with a shake of her head. “I know you don’t know what you want. And that’s why what happened here, Eleanor…” Max pulled Eleanor to her, nose pressed to the top of Eleanor’s shoulder whilst the rest of her sunk into the blonde’s embrace like she was born to be there. “This was a mistake, what happened. It should never have happened with how you were, and how I was. I was not – we were not thinking straight.”

It hurt to say but it was nothing but the truth and Max knew better than to lie about this, especially with how vulnerable Eleanor and she both were and how what had just happened, to put it simply, shouldn’t have.

In spite of her thoughts Max smiled when she heard Eleanor mutter “thinking straight wasn’t what I had in mind” and held onto her tighter, shaking her head.

“You know what I mean.” She murmured and felt Eleanor deflate against her with a noise that sounded like a mixture of grief and fury.

It didn’t scare her because Max knew the next step to this, had stepped down this road before and now had only the knowledge to retrace the steps she had once swore to never follow again. But being here in Eleanor’s arms, pressed chest to chest with her face pressed on the solid bone of Eleanor’s shoulder, told her how much of a child she had been in thinking she would be able to resist that alluring path.

She clung onto Eleanor tighter and angled her head to the side to give her a peck of her lips against cheek. It was not a show of endearment that she usually did but Max knew better than anyone, better than Eleanor herself, that this was more than just a chapter of her and Eleanor closing…

It was decaying into a sour, dusty ending that left a nasty taste in her mouth.

Eventually she led her and Eleanor back down into the warmth of rumpled bed-sheets, tugging the other woman to her chest so that blonde wisps of hair tickled Max’s chin, Eleanor’s cheek pressed against her breasts and their legs entangled. The position was oddly comforting despite their height difference and so of course it only made sense that Eleanor eventually talked and that sweet pretence instantly fled.

“How long are you staying here in London?” Eleanor asked, her voice small and muffled against the swell of Max’s breast. “I mean, you never told me and I-“

“I leave tomorrow, my plane leaves at sometime around 12.” Max interrupted softly, a hand stroking through thick locks of blonde hair. If she grasped too hard or held on for too long she tried not to notice, as though noticing something at the corner of one’s eye but paying it no heed.

Again: it was safer.

Max could feel Eleanor close her eyes against her and despite everything she smiled, craned her neck to look down at the red lips, rosy cheeks and sad eyes that drew words from her lips so well it felt as easy as breathing.

“I won’t forget you Eleanor, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” As if she ever could. Max had realized a long time ago that forgetting Eleanor had never been part of the plan and never would be, no matter their differences. It would hurt to part from her once again, but necessary – Eleanor had her grief to work through and Max would not get in the way of that. She couldn’t, not this time. She had already dedicated her life to her job back in France and she was fairly happy there, not even her love for Eleanor she would risk that for.

Before she had been willing to risk everything: come with me, she had pleaded and watched as Eleanor had laughed in shock and fear that had made her eyes wet and shiny. Max had been young, Eleanor even younger, and at that time she hadn’t understood the reasoning behind Eleanor not wanting to run away together to Paris and start a life of their own together and sometimes when she felt particularly stubborn Max still didn’t.

It was a hard thing to swallow knowing that terror and the intrigue of responsibility had drawn Eleanor to stay, to not be brave, to not love her back as strongly as Max had (and still did) loved her.

But she had swallowed it, eventually. What other choice had she but to swallow that bitter dose?

She hadn’t known she would have to swallow it again, and yet when Max looked down again to see Eleanor staring back up at her, the fear there had vanished. Instead Eleanor stared up at her with determination, her lips pulled into a tight line and her brows narrowed in a way that Max knew meant Eleanor was thinking particularly hard on something and would either share it or not, which seemed more likely.

Which was why shock could not have been the right word to describe what Max felt when Eleanor’s dry lips parted and the words of “don’t go” passed through them effortlessly, so effortlessly that Max instantly felt disturbed at the blatant honesty etched into Eleanor’s features.

Unlike Eleanor had all those years ago Max did not laugh at all, only stared at the blonde in wonder, “don’t go? And why not? I have nothing for me here, Eleanor, you must know this-“

“I’m here,” Eleanor interrupted with a tone of voice that screamed of something that didn’t feel whole or real, and thus something Max did not know to handle, feeling Eleanor’s words slip through her fingers like sand.

Max couldn’t grasp them. She wouldn’t – it wouldn’t be kind, for either of them, if she did.

She shook her head. “Eleanor, this isn’t fair.”

“You asked me to come with you to Paris. To run away with you, and I didn’t because I was scared and I didn’t know how good I had it,” Eleanor said and Max noticed the haste of her words and the desperation laced between each syllable. To say Eleanor was not scared at this moment would have been a mistake, because Max knew, Max could see, that Eleanor looked just as scared (if not more) as she had looked when Max had pleaded with her on her knees to come with her.

“But now,” Eleanor continued to speak, shaking her head when Max went to speak, “but now I see clearly. There is no future for me here – nothing is keeping me here. My company won’t fall down to me, it never will. It’ll just fall to some fucking old fuck whose head was up my father’s arse and I’ll be what I’ve always been…”

Eleanor let out a noisy utterance of breath, her cheeks stained pink with shame. “Nothing. I’ve been nothing. I’ve had nothing.”

“You’ve had James, and Charles.” Max shot back, refusing to feel hope and instead looking to logic on what Eleanor was feeling. Which was grief surely, just grief and nothing more and nothing less.

Eleanor turned away from her with a scoff, “James is leaving soon for work in Ireland and Charles…” When the blonde turned to face Max again she could see that her jaw was clenched, tight and strong and looking so out of place with the thin sheen of water that was apparent in her blue eyes. “Damn it Max, don’t you see how fucking miserable I am? What do I have waiting for me here?”

Max knew that the answer was nothing from the way Eleanor spoke but still she would not let herself be pulled in, refused to. “You’ve had many chances to leave, Eleanor,” she said and begged her voice not to tremble like she feared it would. “Why haven’t you gone before? There have been so many chances, so many times where-“

“Because I was afraid you would turn me away, after what had happened last time,” Eleanor said. “Like you’re doing now.”

“Out of knowing you,” Max retorted and with a huff she moved from Eleanor completely, throwing her legs over the side of the bed and searching, in the dark, for the clothes she had shed during her intimacy with the younger woman beside her.

The way Eleanor acted made Max want to laugh in despair. She didn’t quite believe how easily Eleanor had fallen into believing that it was simply easier for Max to dismiss her words when in truth it was anything but. There was too much force in Eleanor’s words that put her on edge and while she wanted to believe Eleanor was speaking truthfully, the past and knowing Eleanor so well whispered wisps of words and utterances that told Max differently.

After a few more moments of silence and searching Max pulled her pyjamas back on, tying the loose strands of orange ties around her waist. She turned to see that Eleanor watched her, eyes wide and awake and her long, golden lashes fluttered each time their gaze met. It would have been so very romantic to Max if she didn’t know that this was truly the last time this had to happen, whatever _this_ actually was.

Max didn’t expect Eleanor to speak again but the younger woman surprised her by doing so, and as she spoke, shifted to the bottom of her bed in order to stretch her arm across and touch the bottom of Max’s spine with a feather light press of her fingers.

“I’ll come with you, to France.” And then a flicker of uncertainty appeared on Eleanor’s face, transforming her features into the innocent, child-like expression that Max had seen before when she had been the tender age of twenty-one with Eleanor, eighteen, rushing towards her with hands intertwined with a freckled, red-headed youth. “If you want me to come with you, that is. I understand if you might not want me to.”

 Max sighed and picked up her phone she had left on the drawer beside Eleanor’s bed. She squinted at the bright background and the time of ‘1:40am’ that blinked up at her with its obnoxious red font, reminding her not only of the time but how quickly it was falling away from her and Eleanor both as they stood on the precipice of a relationship, of a feeling, they had both thought long since gone when it came to their involvement with the other.

When she put the phone back down and turned to face Eleanor again it was with words that she knew would not falter: “you would leave Charles Vane behind, the little family you have left and your friends all for what, for me? This isn’t you Eleanor, and both of us know it.”

“Why are you so certain on what I want?” Eleanor snapped, suddenly angry with a flash of rage in her blue eyes that made Max’s heart race and her palms to feel sweaty. “Charles is…I care for him, but seeing you today made me realize that as much as I care for him there is something even he can’t amount to – and that’s you. I’ve never been happy, not fully, unless I was with you and now that you’re here, and we kissed and…” She trailed off and Max watched as her throat bobbed with clear discomfort at being put on the spot like this. “You think I’m just fucking around with you but seeing you again has never made me more certain that there’s nothing here for me anymore.”

“And so I am your ticket to meaning?” Max replied and watched as Eleanor’s mouth ticked in annoyance. She knew it was harsh, to keep pressing Eleanor like this, but she had been hurt before and would never make the mistake she had in the past in allowing herself to believe Eleanor so easily that she ended up suffering for it.

Yet, despite Max’s prodding, Eleanor remained elegant in her response, poised like a princess as she replied. “You’re not any bloody ticket, Max. Is it so hard to believe that I could realize something and want to change it?”

Max didn’t restrain her nod nor did she restrain the knowing look that crept on her features when Eleanor looked at her, crest-fallen, with her mouth parted and her cheeks puffed out in both surprise and infuriation. It was a look that Max knew very well and so the sting of knowing that her indifference had hurt Eleanor did not seem as sharp, or so painful when she saw a dark shadow cross over Eleanor’s face and into the glint of her eyes.

She loved Eleanor but so much had changed and where she would have risked everything before (just as she had asked Eleanor to risk everything before) Max knew better now and she knew despite the lingering she felt each time she saw Eleanor on social media and such, there were some things she couldn’t risk out of love for the woman in front of her.

It hurt to admit that and it hurt even more to move forward and cup Eleanor’s cheeks in the palms of her hand and press a kiss to her lips with the knowledge that her next words would hurt Eleanor all over again.

“Give yourself a month Eleanor,” Max uttered between each kiss, keeping each one as cool and collected as herself despite the heat of the fire that lingered in each kiss that left Eleanor to her. “A month, maybe more and then decide what you want to do. And if you are to follow me to Paris then know that my support for your living would be minimal and-“

“I wouldn’t accept any charity whatsoever anyway!” Eleanor interrupted with anger, face turning a horrible blotchy colour of fury that made her turn away from Max’s kisses with a pout.

Max let Eleanor move away from her and withdrew her hands to settle on Eleanor’s shoulders, fingers already moving to dig deep into the pale flesh.

“I need to live my life Eleanor, just as you need to live yours,” Max said. “It is up to you whether you want me in that life of yours, but for now I need to put mine before your own.”

And with that she pressed a hand to Eleanor’s heart and smiled a pained smile that she knew Eleanor could see easily.

“I will sleep in your father’s room for the rest of the night,” she said, enjoying the thrilling beat of Eleanor’s heart against the palm of her hand. A part of Max wanted to grab Eleanor’s own hand to press it to her own chest, to let her know that she too was just as uncertain (and yet excited) as Eleanor was but something held her back, something that felt too much like embarrassment and shame.

Instead she wished Eleanor goodnight, kissed her cheek and told her not to wake up tomorrow morning before Max left.

“If what you say is true then this night will not be the last time you shall see me face-to-face.”

Max felt Eleanor’s eyes on her long after the moment she turned around and fluttered away into the dark, dank room that had once belonged to Richard Guthrie.

 

* * *

 

_2 MONTHS LATER_

“Fucks sake, you know what you’re doing?”

Max scowled and hit at her redheaded companion’s hat, smirking with victory when it flew to the floor and Anne Bonny glared up at her with piercing eyes.

“Dick,” Anne muttered under her breath and only stopped when Max held up the needle that she had been using to fill in Anne’s tattoo above her left breast. “S’alright you made yer point. Carry on, just be fucking gentle will ya?”

Max rolled her eyes and bit her lip to stop her retort. It was of course not Anne’s fault she was in such a mood as this one and in retrospect she should be relieved that Anne was her best customer as well as her roommate to the apartment she owned. If she wasn’t then perhaps her near unsteady hands (that were rather skilled, in spite of her weariness) would not have been as welcome as they were.

Her tiredness she blamed completely on herself. The first month had passed and Max had not given up hope at all, in fact it had only doubled at seeing that Eleanor had looked significantly healthier in the photos she had posted up on social media with her arms around both James Flint and another man, one whom she supposed to be that of James’ fiancé, Thomas Hamilton.

In fact she had looked so healthy and happy that Max had taken it upon herself to comment on how happy Eleanor looked, feeling somewhat giddy at the smiley emoji and love hearts she had received back along with Flint’s teasing following soon after. It had made Max feel secure and somewhat silly in her doubts of Eleanor and the change that Eleanor had said she wanted to go through, to better herself and live her life to the fullest, and yet Max had doubted.

And then Max had found herself doubting even more by the end of the second month of waiting: talks with Eleanor had all of a sudden gone silent and Max had refused to badger Flint or Thomas whom were away elsewhere, enjoying themselves. She had dealt instead with silence, a silence that concerned her and then frustrated her as day after day passed and no word from Eleanor came – just more silence and more wondering and more feeling foolish than she had ever felt before.

Anne had called her stupid for giving a shit about Eleanor in the first place but had then pressed awkwardly against her straight after she had spoken, her features creased together to look somewhat sympathetic.

“Changed my mind,” she had said, hand pressed tight to Max’s waist. “Blonde cunt is the stupid one for letting you down again.

It was the most comforting thing Anne had ever said and Max remembered being nestled safely in Anne’s arms, head propped up against her breasts and her eyes glazed with tears that she had attempted to will away to the best of her ability. Anne hadn’t said anything about them, had just continued to stroke her head and mutter obscenities about work and the damned cat that kept sneaking in from their neighbour’s into their bathroom window.

The comfort of Anne had distracted her somewhat until yesterday where she had stayed up all night watching old videos of herself, Eleanor, her family and friends that she had left behind in England. The worst mistake, of course, to see herself so happy at first and then realize how those memories had all just been one road down to the one she was on now – one of falsified happiness that had in fact been true and genuine up until the moment she had returned from England, her heart craving Eleanor’s in the worst way.

Max had thought herself recovered from the ties that had woven her and Eleanor together but it seemed apparent to her that it was in fact only just the beginning – and she had been an idiot, an absolute idiot, to think any differently.

All of a sudden a loud bang from outside of the parlour startled Max away from doing Anne’s tattoo, eyes arched up to the window where she could see the security guard, Billy, was currently talking to someone outside.

Anne’s eyes rolled towards the direction Max’s had gone. “Nobody got any fucking respect around here or something?”

Billy all of a sudden yelling seemed to answer Anne’s question and with a frustrated grunt Max placed her needle down, tore off her gloves and patted herself down to make sure she would look somewhat respectable to go see what the living hell was going on outside.

Apart from noticing she had a huge ink stain on her pants (“fils de pute!”) Max felt good enough and made her way over to where she could see Billy’s huge hunkering form staring down at someone who looked as though they were actually idiotic enough to consider fighting him.

“Bones!” She called out, tapping on the window in order to gain his attention.

When Billy turned to face her to explain the situation Max found herself suddenly feeling at a loss for breath, her lungs feeling constricted and her whole body turning rigid in a matter of moments.

The figure who had been arguing with Billy stood up tall and with clear determination, the size difference clearly not being an obstacle to them. The way their fingers were curled and pulled into fists, pressed to the hips as if they were ready to strike at any minute – pale but pink at the knuckles, ready to brawl. And then that golden hair, burning brighter in the summer sun of Paris as though it were strings of a harp, plucked by angelic fingers to be spun anew into something far more beautiful than Max had thought of.

Eleanor Guthrie looked at her, donned in clothes that were so heavy and thick it became obvious she had come off a plane straight from England, with a smile and flowers in her hand that drooped obscenely from the heat.

She looked like a complete disaster, so to speak.

“You gonna let me in, Max?” Eleanor said, interrupting Max’s thoughts like the destructive force Max had always known the young blonde was. “Literally, it’s been a pain in the ass to keep me coming here a secret but…”

She tussled the flowers in her hand and looked sheepish as she said, “I got you flowers?”

Max felt laughter bubble in her throat with such strength it felt more like a tickling sensation than anything serious. A series of emotions hit her square in the chest and left her giddy, unknowing what else to do but watch as Billy and Eleanor both looked at her curiously, waiting for her next move.

And so Max reached forward, unhooked the latch and allowed the door to slowly swing open.

“Come in,” she found herself speaking, not sure which part of her was talking but not caring when she saw Eleanor’s whole face brighten. “We have a lot to talk about.”

 

**FIN.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope u enjoyed this?? i haven't gone through all the grammar yet so if anything is a little confusing i apologize and will sort it out later. i'm just so tired of writing rn and i wanted to get this out to you all.


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